The Software Development and Computing Support Core (SDCSC) will be a resource shared among the component research projects in the Center for Prevention Methodology. Its staff will provide ongoing assistance to center researchers as they seek to implement, test, apply, document, and disseminate their methods for maximal benefit to the prevention research community. This assistance will take place in five specific areas. First, the SDCSC will collaborate with researchers in the Center for Prevention Methodology to create user-friendly and reliable software that implements innovative statistical techniques developed under the four component research projects. Having professional programming expertise within the center will greatly increase the efficiency of our software development process, freeing the center Investigators to concentrate on methodological research. Second, the SCDSC will participate in the ongoing process of documenting and maintaining the software developed by center Investigators. This will allow us to be more responsive in answering queries, fixing bugs, and making improvements to keep our software products maximally useful to prevention researchers. Third, this core will create and maintain a system of informative web pages to distribute software, documentation, technical reports, and other products developed by the center. Fourth, this core will provide technical support to install and maintain computer networks, hardware, and software used by staff throughout the center. The fifth function of the SDCSC is to maintain on-site copies of prevention databases for easy access by our researchers, to assist them in testing and applying their methods to prevention data. We have entered into formal agreements giving us access to data from nine major prevention-related studies from across the United States, providing us with longitudinal data from more than 25,600 subjects and a wide assortment of prevention-related constructs. Managing and documenting these data will be the responsibility of the SDCSC staff.
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